The project has received the Award of Excellence in the category Emerging District Energy Market, which recognizes the successful implementation of a heat network system in a country where this market is not yet fully developed.
The initiative has been spearheaded by the state-owned company HUNOSA, which is progressing in its transition from coal mining to renewable energy. The network is being developed around the historic Pozo Fondón mine and utilizes mine water pumped from old tunnels as a geothermal resource, combining it with forest biomass in a hybrid system.
The network It supplies 13 buildings of different types in La Felguera, supplying heating and domestic hot water. The combination of geothermal and biomass allows for guaranteed supply, reduces exclusive dependence on geothermal resources, optimizes the installation's performance (improving the COP), and adjusts production costs through intelligent management tools. It manages to reduce emissions by 1,300 tons of CO₂ per year and guarantee savings on the bill compared to traditional fuels.
The AVEBIOM partner URÍA Engineering Installations SA, This company has been in charge of carrying out the work and implementing the thermal infrastructure, while another partner, Biomass Factor, has supplied the two Fröling Lambdamat LM750 biomass boilers, with a total power of 1.5 MW, which complement the geothermal input and allow peak demand to be covered with forest wood chips.
According to the Biomass Heating Networks Report 2024 According to the AVEBIOM Biomass Observatory, Spain has 584 heating and cooling networks with biomass and 549 MW of installed power, after the commissioning of 54 new networks in 2024.
The model developed in Langreo demonstrates that the hybridization between geothermal energy and manageable biomass is a technically viable, replicable solution aligned with the decarbonization of heat supply in territories undergoing industrial transition.